Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, and Danny Jacobs Dominate

Photo courtesy of Suzan Classen

by Sarah Deming

BROOKLYN, N.Y.–Saturday’s card at Barclays was a bad night for the underdog, and  – to quote light welterweight Edgar Santana (above right) – we are all underdogs in one way or another.

In the first of the night’s three mismatches broadcast on Showtime, bone cancer survivor Danny “Miracle Man” Jacobs (below) almost finished Aussie Jarrod Fletcher in the first round. Fletcher hung on until stopped by a barrage in the fifth.

The reliably odious Jim Gray worked the cancer angle overtime in the post-fight interview, even asking Jacobs what he thought about when he was on his deathbed. What Danny Jacobs thought about on his deathbed is none of our business. Anyway, it’s not a deathbed if you survive.

Photos by Amanda Kwok for Showtime

[[MORE]]Lamont Peterson (top right, below left) was up next, defending his junior welterweight strap against Harlem’s Edgar Santana, the most credible of the night’s designated victims and the only one with the crowd on his side.

After moving laterally for the first three rounds, Peterson held his ground in the fourth, digging to the belt line with great conviction. From the fifth until the tenth-round stoppage, as Peterson pivoted around an increasingly helpless Santana, this looked less like a boxing match and more like the masterful bag work I’ve seen Lamont do at at Headbangers Gym in Southeast D.C.

It’s more fun to watch Peterson hit the bag than witness a prolonged beating like this. Heavy bags don’t have dark soulful eyes. Heavy bags don’t say things like, “We are all underdogs in one way or another.”

My desolate seat in the upper decks offered a good view of the press row from which I had once again been excluded. There were plenty of empty seats on that press row and, I imagined, plenty of freeloaders who didn’t know how to jab or use semicolons.

It was hard to see the ring; I wanted to go home early and emotionally eat cake.

As every sports fan understands, it is only through moments of crisis that a champion’s heart is forged. This champion, shivering with cold in her little black dress, unable to get Wifi, longing for friends and teammates and a slice of tres leches, stood at a crossroads. Would she give in to despair? Or would she find, deep inside herself, the strength to blog?

You can guess what choice she made. A champion always goes the distance, even if the undercard starts at 4:15 PM. A champion acknowledges that she might have overdone it with those shots of Knob Creek during the second bout and that this might be contributing to her feelings of fatigue and rage.

Most importantly, a champion focuses on those less fortunate. There was one person in the Barclays Center who was having a worse night than me. Poor Rod Salka (left) was just a club fighter from Pittsburgh, and he was about to face a world champion at the peak of his powers. When Salka had made the 142-pound catchweight the day before, he got on the scale in black socks and saggy gray briefs, as though he’d never even watched a public weigh-in.

Danny “Swift” Garcia (right) took a single round to see it. During this time, Rod Salka telegraphed the terror of a mouse dropped in the cage of a renowned python. In the second, a jab to Salka’s body followed by a right hand to the head sent him down the first of three times.

I watched the referee grimace as he searched for the end. He waited too long, but everything about Saturday went on too long, except the time I spent with Debi and Sosa and Jeanie and Earl and Pee Wee and Tiara Brown. 

Four things happened at once: Danny Garcia landed a sledgehammer hook, Rod Salka crashed to the ground, the ref waved his arms, and a white towel flew into the ring. I was sad when it was happening and I was sad when it was over.

My friend said, “You’re always sad after boxing.”